1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a presence-based communication system, and in particular, to providing an information service to users via the presence system.
2. Description of Related Art
Presence-based interactive communication systems enable callees (presentities) to publish, in real-time, their presence information, such as the availability and current status of the callee devices/applications, to callers (presence watchers). Presence systems typically incorporate presence servers to manage the presence information for a plurality of presentities. Presence servers currently automatically receive updated presence information from various presence sources, such as telephone applications or instant messaging applications, and aggregate the received presence information to reflect the presence status of the presentities. For example, when a presentity initiates or receives a voice call on his or her desktop phone, the presence server is notified and changes the presence status of the presentity to “On the Phone.”
Presence servers further provide the current presence status of presentities to watchers of the presentities to assist the watchers in establishing real-time voice, text and/or multimedia communication sessions with the presentities. As a result, presence systems facilitate more efficient and effective communication sessions between watchers and presentities.
However, current presence systems are only capable of aggregating and distributing traditional presence information that indicates the availability of a presentity. There are a number of other real-time applications that distribute other types of information to subscribers. For example, users can receive real-time updates on stock quotes, real-time updates on the status of a package being delivered, real-time updates on travel arrangements, such as flight delays and gate changes, and other types of real-time service information. The real-time service information can be displayed as an instant message on their cell phone or PDA, viewed using an e-mail account or provided to them in the form of a voice call or voice message.
In order to receive the real-time service information, users typically must subscribe to an information provider that provides the real-time service information to users. In addition, the user must provide a cell phone number or e-mail address to which the real-time service information can be routed. Whenever updates occur to information for which the user has requested notification, the information provider automatically generates an instant message, e-mail or voice call to the user to provide the updated real-time service information to the user. However, if the user does not provide multiple phone numbers and/or e-mail addresses to which the real-time service information may be routed, the user may not timely receive the updated information. For example, if the updated information is sent via e-mail and the user is not currently on-line, or if the updated information is sent via instant message to the user's cell phone and the user's cell phone is turned off, the user may not read the updated information until it is too late.
Even if the user does provide multiple phone numbers and/or e-mail addresses to the information provider, the information provider may simultaneously route the updated information to all provided phone numbers and/or e-mail accounts, which unnecessarily increases the traffic on the network. In other real-time applications, the information provider may sequentially route the updated information to the user's phone numbers and/or e-mail accounts until the information provider receives confirmation that the user received the real-time update, which also unnecessarily increases the traffic on the network and may delay the delivery of the real-time service information to the user.
In addition, there are also a number of other types of information for which users would like to receive real-time updates, but there is currently no infrastructure established for distributing that real-time service information. Therefore, what is needed is a presence system capable of providing information services to users to distribute real-time service information.